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THE FATAL DRIFT OF THE KARLUK 29

Francisco or England, but wintered in the Arctic more
than twenty times, always whaling or trapping, except
for a brief connection with the arctic coal mines near
Cape Lisburne. No man whose name is found in refer-
ence books under the heading of “Polar Explorer” ever
spent half that much time beyond either of the polar
circles. Franklin died during his second winter, and
Scott in his third. Shackleton spent three polar winters,
Bartlett four, Nansen four. Amundsen has eight winters
to his credit, and so has Sverdrup. Peary spent nine
winters in the Arctic. I have ten polar winters behind
me now, but my record was only half that when Hadley
joined our expedition in 1914.

Hadley’s experience, besides being more extensive than
that of any so-called explorer, was also in a way more
varied, for he had been there as a trader, whaler, naval
officer, coal miner and (the last four years) as an explorer.
He had traveled on foot and by sledge and in every
variety of sea conveyance—skin-boat, wooden whale-
boat, sail ship and steamer. He had hunted and trapped
on the arctic lands; he had traveled on the landfast sea
ice and to some extent on the moving pack. On one
occasion he and his party had been given up for dead
when a terrific gale broke the ice on which they were
whaling west of Point Barrow and carried them they
knew not where, for they had no instruments of precision.
When they sighted land after several weeks of struggle,
it was four hundred miles from Point Barrow and about
equally far from where they had supposed themselves
to be.

As related in “My Life With the Eskimo,” I first met
Hadley at Cape Smythe, near Point Barrow, in 1908,
and liked and admired him from the first. When the